The Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday raided the head office of the Congress-owned National Herald newspaper in Delhi and 11 other locations in connection with a money-laundering probe, prompting the party to allege “vendetta politics” by the Narendra Modi government to “silence” the principal Opposition.
The raids came against the backdrop of the agency questioning Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi over days in connection with the case. Earlier, the ED had quizzed Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Pawan Kumar Bansal.
Congress chief spokesperson Jairam Ramesh tweeted on Tuesday: “The raids on Herald House, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, are a part of the continued attack against India’s principal Opposition — Indian National Congress. We strongly condemn this vendetta politics against those who speak up against the Modi govt. You cannot silence us!”
Sources in the central agency said the searches were carried out under criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to “gather additional evidence with regard to the trail of funds and they are against those entities who were involved in the National Herald-linked transactions”.
“The raids were conducted today in light of fresh evidence obtained by the ED after the recent questioning of various people in the case,” a source in the agency said.
According to officials, the location of a shell company in Calcutta involved in the case was also covered in the raids.
Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot said the raid on Herald House showed that the Centre was rattled. “After torturing Mrs Sonia Gandhi and Mr Rahul Gandhi in the name of interrogation, the ED is now taking such action for face saving,” he tweeted.
Gehlot claimed the ED had closed the case in July 2015, but the Centre transferred the investigating officer of that time and “put pressure on the new officers and initiated action with vendetta in mind”.
“No matter how much the central government tries to defame the Congress through ED, in the end the truth shall win,” Gehlot said.
The Congress says the money-laundering case is bogus.
Herald House on Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg in the capital is the registered office address of the National Herald newspaper, whose publisher Associate Journals Limited (AJL) is under probe by the ED over its acquisition by Young Indian. The Gandhis are among the promoters and shareholders of Young Indian.
Jawaharlal Nehru had founded the National Herald in 1937.
The ED registered the case under criminal provisions of the PMLA on a complaint from BJP politician Subramanian Swamy a decade ago.
Swamy has accused Sonia, Rahul and others of conspiring to cheat and misappropriate funds, alleging Young Indian paid Rs 50 lakh to obtain the right to recover Rs 90.25 crore that AJL owed the Congress.
Sonia and Rahul are understood to have told the ED that no personal assets were made in the Congress-AJL-National Herald deal as Young Indian was a “not-for-profit” company. They also told the ED that AJL continues to have possession of all its assets and Young Indian neither “owns nor controls” these properties.
Additional reporting by PTI
